


And Then the Spell Was Cast

by RileyC



Category: Fairy Tales and Related Fandoms, Original Work
Genre: Dark Magic, Fae & Fairies, M/M, Original Character(s), Romance, Spells & Enchantments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-21
Updated: 2012-12-21
Packaged: 2017-11-21 20:08:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/601598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RileyC/pseuds/RileyC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To learn the true power of love, Prince David of Llinnisfaire first had to lose everything...</p>
            </blockquote>





	And Then the Spell Was Cast

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gryvon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gryvon/gifts).



> Beta'd by Mithen.

In Kerrisford of the North Country lived Prince David of Llinnisfaire, a Duke of the Hundred Kingdoms. Tall and slim, he gave the impression of being older than his two-and-twenty years because of a grave and somber manner, and for his silvery white hair that he wore long in the old fashion. Fine-boned features, dark brows and eyes, and a pale scar along his jaw completed a handsome figure most often clothed in black silk and leather, and adorned with silver and lace. He liked people to believe that scar was the trophy of some romantic duel. In truth, it was a reminder of a time he fell out of a tree while playing with his closest friend and companion, and of how that friend had saved his life.

 

That friend was Gareth, a foundling raised by the groundskeeper, Ethan, and his wife Rose, and left at their door on a cold, snowy night, nine months after Beltaine. They searched for but never found his mother, and could only guess at his father because all that the note left with him said, was, **His name is Gareth. Please love him.** This proved an easy task and before long Ethan and Rose and everyone at Llinnisfaire had forgotten he ever belonged to anyone else. Gareth grew to be a tall and comely youth, with dark hair worn short in the modern way, and blue eyes that always seemed lit with an extra spark.

 

David liked to believe that Gareth was a fairy prince, sent into exile among mortals to keep him safe from enemies. After all, who would think to look for such a being in the stables, grooming and tending to the castle’s horses? And although he largely joked about this, David did wish that it could be true as there would be no difference between them then. For while all Kerrisford gossiped about whether this fair maiden or that one would one day be his bride, the truth was David’s heart had already been claimed.

 

This is the story of how he learned the true power of love. First, he had to lose everything…

 

***

 

_In need of air, David steps out onto the terrace and breathes deep of the summer night. Strains of music drift on the air like whispers as the revelry continues on in the ballroom. There are alliances to form, flirtations to indulge, promises made both false and true, and he cannot bear another moment of it. The gardens beckon to him; cool and inviting, he might lose himself among its grassy pathways. He might turn his steps towards the stables…_

_That thought pleases him and he removes his mask, a silvery, fanciful thing chased with delicate designs. The sound of a step, stealthy and quiet on the gravel halts him in mid-gesture and he remains still as a voice calls out, “Stand ye and deliver!”_

_“Are we not confused here?” David says. “Is it not I who has a mask?”_

_“Aye, my prince,” Gareth comes to meet him, “but I have the sword.” He presses the tip to David’s chest, merriment and mischief in his eyes._

_David tries to match those eyes. “And of what would you rob me, you varlet?” he challenges and experiences an odd pleasure at the laughter that bubbles up in the handsome face._

_“That is a weighty question, my prince.”_

_“Perhaps my virtue?” David suggests with an arched eyebrow._

_“Nay, my prince,” Gareth affects a solemn look, belied by the sparkle in his uncanny eyes. “I fear I am rather late for that,” he says and touches the blade to David’s chin to tip it up. As their eyes meet and search each other out, he lowers the sword, expression truly grave now as if some tremendous event is at hand._

_He steps closer to David, a hand stretched out as though to touch his face with callused fingers—_

_“David!_ David! What are you standing there woolgathering for?”

 

He blinked and shivered, and glanced about him to see that his uncle Cedric had him under observation, just as he had that night last summer when he had interrupted. He loved Cedric dearly and valued his advice beyond measure, but the older man’s sense of timing was deplorable beyond belief. “I was just on my way to bid Gareth farewell, Uncle.”

 

Expression much too wise, words inscrutable, Cedric contented himself with a murmured, “Were you, indeed?” Cedric removed his riding gloves as he came towards him. “That lad he’s trained to replace him as groom leaves something to be desired.”

 

“I’ll speak to him. Likely he only needs encouragement.”

 

“And you’re still calling on the wizard and his daughter tonight?” Cedric called after him as David strode across the grounds.

 

“I am,” David told him, though he hardly looked forward to it. “Excuse me.” He quickened his pace to reach the cottage where Gareth lived with his parents. Ethan and Rose were tending to the garden as he passed and called out their greetings. He raised a hand in acknowledgement of them, reached the door and paused a moment to compose his features. What he had to do, he would do well, though he ached even now to think of it.

 

Another moment and he nodded to himself, pushed open the front door and followed a familiar trail through snug and cozy surroundings to a back bedroom. “So you’re off then,” David said as he lounged in the doorway of Gareth’s room and watched him pack. He longed to seize those cases and empty all of their contents out upon the floor. He wanted to dispatch a messenger to intercept the coach on the High Road and order it back to the city.

 

He could do that. David held the power to command that Gareth never set foot off the estate. He could lock him in the tower. He could fling himself full-length upon the floor to kick and scream to his heart’s content, dignity be damned. All any of that would accomplish, however, would be to strengthen Gareth’s resolve to leave Llinnisfaire to see what the rest of the world had to offer.

 

There was, David knew, one last resort. Words that could be spoken that had the power to change everything. Not an enchantment—or perhaps the oldest and greatest of all enchantments. Words a prince wasn’t supposed to speak to a stable boy. Worlds might crumble and foundations crack, and David would have gladly risked all of that and more, if…

 

There, as they said, was the rub. It was that unknown, that uncertain _if_ that caused him to falter and fumble and stand dumb as everything he wanted in this world prepared to walk away. He sighed and briefly contemplated the tragedy of ifs that never were, and trusted that he had a suitably imperturbable expression fixed in place as Gareth glanced over at him.

 

“We have talked about this,” Gareth said. “I’ve already delayed going to University these last three years.”

 

Yes, because David found one more thing and then another that only Gareth could assist him with. It seemed that even transparently false excuses had their limit. “I still don’t see what you can learn at University that you can’t delve into here. You know you have free rein of the library.”

 

Gareth nodded. “Yes, and I thank you for that. I’ve read everything in your library at least twice—most of them more than that.”

 

 _Our_ _library; yours as much as mine._ The words welled up in David’s throat and made it ache with how badly they wanted to be spoken. Instead he looked away and swallowed, his attention seemingly riveted on an unframed painting that had been propped on the dresser by Gareth’s bed so that it might be the first thing he saw when he awoke every morning. David envied that painting and thought he might grow resentful and jealous of it if he dwelled on it much longer.

 

It was a striking work of art, remarkably so given its source. Gareth had bought it from an itinerant artist who had passed through Llinnisfaire three summers ago. The painting showed a stretch of tropical, black sand beach surrounded by lush vegetation; the green of the plants, with clusters of purple, red, and white flowers was especially dramatic. Waves rolled languidly up the shore in a delicate froth. Overhead, the sky was a clear and sunlit blue, sea birds wheeling through the air. It was idyllic and inviting and the painter had insisted he had created it from memory, that he had seen this beach and so many other lands just as exotic in his travels. David had thought this was a well-practiced speech to sell paintings but Gareth had been smitten with the thing, his imagination fired up with the idea of seeing that beach and other wonders. That had been the moment David realized he could not keep Gareth at Llinnisfaire forever, and that it was selfish of him to want to.

 

They had always meant to get a frame for the painting. Now he supposed it was too late.

 

“You’re not taking this with you?”

 

Gareth rolled his eyes. “I can’t take everything, David—and I’m coming back.”

 

“Hmm.” David picked up a small, decoratively carved box inlaid with a checkerboard surface of red and white enamel that he hadn’t seen before. He could hear something slide around inside but the lid was stuck firmly shut and resisted his efforts to pry it open.

 

“That’s not how you open it.”

 

“What’s inside?”

 

Gareth’s smile was unusually mysterious. “That’s for you to find out, actually.” He took the box from David and looked it over. “It’s a puzzle box with a prize inside.” He held it out to David. “I want you to have it.”

 

Flummoxed, David could only stare blankly at the box. “A farewell gift?”

 

Gareth sighed, a trace of impatience in his expression now. “For the last time, this isn’t forever. But it is something to remember me by.”

 

He eyed the box even more suspiciously, still not accepting it. “What?”

 

“Figure out how to open it and you’ll find out. You’re good at that.”

 

David wasn’t so sure about that. “All right.” He reached for the box, his fingers brushing against Gareth’s for an instant. “Thank you.” He wanted to make that touch linger and almost dropped the box, their hands tangling all too briefly as they both reached to secure the box.

 

“Are you all right?” Gareth peered closely at him, concern in his crystal blue eyes. “You’re not usually so fumble-fingered.”

 

“This is an unusual day.” He ran his fingers across the red-and-white enamel pieces, cool and smooth beneath his fingertips. He couldn’t imagine what prize it might contain. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. The only prize he cared to earn would soon be bound far, far away from him and he was afraid to let himself believe those promises that Gareth would be back. “You’ll write?”

 

Gareth’s smile was gentle now and with a trace of something fond in his look. Fond was rather less than David wanted. “I’ll write every day. You’ll hardly know I’m gone.”

 

 _That_ wasn’t likely. “I could come to visit.” Did that sound as tentative to Gareth’s ear as it did to him? As though he sought permission?

 

Gareth answered directly. “You could.” He looked at him closely again, as if to search out secrets. “Will you?”

 

He looked down at the box and gave a diffident shrug. “I don’t often go up to town,” he murmured. There was no mistaking the exasperated huff of air that answered this statement and he would not have been surprised if Gareth seized the fireplace poker and beat him senseless with it.  David wouldn’t have blamed him in the least. “I might find myself with business there sometime, though.”

 

He turned around to look at Gareth, to ask if he remembered last summer and that night of the ball. To ask if it had been more than just another of the games they had played since childhood. The words were doomed to die unspoken as Ethan came to the window to tell them that the coach had arrived. Never before had David so bitterly resented the Imperial Coach Fleet’s reputation for prompt reliability.

 

“You had best be off then,” he said. He thought his voice sounded tinny, as if it came from some great distance.

 

“I suppose I had,” Gareth said. He didn’t rush to gather his luggage, however, but instead caught David’s eye in a searching gaze that seemed to silently implore some understanding or promise from him. Mysteriously, an urgent note in his voice, he asked, “You won’t forget the box?”

 

David shook his head. “I won’t forget anything, Gareth. I never will.”

 

“Gareth,” Ethan stepped into the room, “you’d best hurry. We can’t keep people waiting.” He cast a curious look at David but kept his thoughts to himself.

 

No, no they couldn’t make anyone wait. “Here, let me help.” David stepped forward to reach for one of the trunks as Gareth and Ethan picked up the others. That earned him another speculative look as they hurried out to the coach that waited in the lane.

 

The other passengers—a cleric, two middle-aged ladies, along with a younger and more buxom one—were all a-twitter at this diversion to the Castle. All eyes avidly observed the little party as it stood outside the cottage, with speculation rife as to who would join the travelers and might either of those shockingly handsome young men be the Prince. All too soon Gareth’s luggage was secured atop the coach and the driver waited with obvious impatience to be off and away.

 

David waited while Gareth was embraced and kissed by his parents, Rose weeping openly. Finally it was only the two of them and David would have sold his kingdom in that instant for just five minutes more time with him.

 

“Be careful tonight,” Gareth said. “I don’t like the way that Nicodemus and his daughter look at you.”

 

David scowled at him. These were their last moments and he wanted to talk about that? “How do they look at me?”

 

“Like they’re both hungry.” Gareth touched his elbow. “I don’t trust them.”

 

“Nor do I. Credit me with some sense.” He returned that touch, his own fingers curved around Gareth’s upper arm, the muscle hard and stronger beneath his hand. Voice low so none other could hear, he said, “If I asked you to stay…”

 

“You know I would always honor and obey you.”

 

David grimaced. “You have never _obeyed_ me in your life.” He could command him—and never know if that was the only reason Gareth stayed. That prospect, he found, would be as intolerable as to let him go now. “Don’t forget me,” he whispered against Gareth’s ear as he clasped him close in a fervent, comradely embrace.

 

“As if I ever could,” Gareth whispered just as fiercely, his arms tight around David.

 

Heedless of the eager eyes fixed upon them, David pressed his forehead to Gareth’s, willing the world to stop and leave them like this forever. Then, almost in anger, he pushed away from him and growled, “Go. _Go_.” For he could not endure another moment of this.

 

Gareth nodded, eyes averted, and climbed aboard the coach. He didn’t look back as the driver urged the team of horses forward. David didn’t take his eyes off the coach until it disappeared around a curve in the road.

 

***

 

“What’s this?” Cedric picked up the puzzle box and turned it over in his hands.

 

“A gift.” David took it back from him. “I think it’s meant to be a mystery.”

 

“Funny sort of gift.” Cedric looked him up and down and nodded his approval. “You look presentable.”

 

“Your flattery goes to my head, Uncle.”

 

Cedric gave him a hard look. “Let’s trust nothing else does this evening. I still don’t like that it’s tonight, when I have to meet with Farrow and Ducayne.”

 

David turned back to the mirror to adjust his collar. “Do you imagine Nicodemus and Odette divined a time when you would be absent so as to lure me into some nefarious plot?”

 

Cedric raised a censorious eyebrow in the mirror. “I put nothing past them. They’re descended from Malivoire, remember.” Here, he clapped a firm hand on David’s shoulder. “And I’m not the only one who will be absent from your side tonight, my boy.”

 

As though he could forget that. “Most sorcerers have something of Malivoire in their blood. Should we return to the days when we feared all wizards and killed them in that fear?”

 

Expression grave, Cedric said, “No, those days are well past. Caution never comes amiss, however.”

 

“Nor am I without it, Uncle.”  He thought he knew what Odette wanted from him. Her father’s motives were somewhat obscure although David suspected it was not so dissimilar to that of the marquesses Farrow and Ducayne.

 

Cedric still didn’t look happy about it but he nodded briefly and clasped David’s shoulder once more. “I must be off. Take care.”

 

David nodded. “And you, Uncle.”

 

With one more troubled look at him, Cedric took his leave. David supposed he should call for his carriage soon. That he felt more inclined to send a messenger with his regrets that he could not, after all, dine with Nicodemus and Odette tonight had less to do with any vague premonition of his own than with his desire to stay here, alone, and bask in the misery he felt at Gareth’s absence. If he once started down that road, however, he might be a very long time finding his way back. In lieu of such self-indulgence, he picked up the puzzle box for one more examination.

 

If he remembered right, you pressed a spot here, another there, and---well, it was _supposed_ to spring open and divulge its secrets. The challenge was in discovering which combination, of potentially hundreds of movements, was the correct one. David had already begun to suspect the secret of the box was that Gareth believed it would take him the two or three years Gareth was away to work out that combination.

 

“Sir?” His butler, Bertram, appeared at the door. “Shall I call for your carriage?”

 

He glanced at the clock and nodded. “Yes. I’ll be down momentarily.” Bertram left and David had one last look at the box. Perhaps two fingers here, a thumb there… He grumbled in frustration and shook the maddening thing, the object hidden inside taunting him with its elusiveness. “What are you?” he murmured. It was too small to be a treasure map, and somehow it didn’t sound like a key. His imagination wouldn’t supply much beyond those ideas.

 

 _Something to remember me by…_ A portrait miniature? Convinced that must be it, David tried two more combinations of movements, eyed the clock and was about to give it up for the moment when something clicked. He bit his lip and held and breath as his fingers slid carefully along the smooth surface. The inlaid checkerboard… Of course! It was the squares! _And_ he knew the combination, one of the ciphers they had worked out years ago. His fingers pressed six diagonal squares that spelled out a name and—yes, slide this back and pull this out…and a cool polished stone made of amethyst and shaped like a heart fell out into his palm.

 

A heart stone; it was a heart stone, not taken from the heart of a dragon but no less possessed of magic for that. David felt certain of that as his fingers closed around it. There might be as many meanings to the stone as combinations to open the box, yet he knew in _his_ heart that it meant one thing, and one thing only.

 

As he slipped the stone into a pocket, he found he could stand straighter, move with more energy, and that there was something like a spring in his step as he hurried down the steps and outside where his carriage and retinue awaited. He could get through this evening no matter how dreary. He could endure countless evenings like it now.

 

“Feeling better, sir?” Bertram asked as he settled David’s cape around his shoulders.

 

“Much better, Bertram.” He climbed into the carriage but then poked his head back out. “I’ll want to make plans to visit the City when I get back. We might take a house there. Would you look into that?”

 

“It would be my pleasure, sir. Do have a pleasant evening.”

 

“Thank you,” he said and tapped the roof of the carriage to indicate he was ready to depart.

 

He wasn’t blind to the obstacles that remained but what had looked so bleak and hopeless before was bright and beckoning now. 

 

***

 

Awakened from a light doze, Gareth sat up straighter in the coach and glanced outside. An involuntary shiver ran through him as he saw that they had reached the Dark Woods. There were tales about these woods; that they were the haunt of the Revenants, brutal thieves and murderers in life who were raised by Necromancers to carry out unspeakable crimes. Mounted on fiery-eyed, sulfur-breathing steeds, they were said to descend upon the unwary traveler and slaughter them—and do worse than murder.

 

The stories were dismissed as something to frighten children now, yet long ago Sparrow Longbow and his men had stood against them as they fought against Malivoire, King of the Necromancers. Was it so impossible, people whispered around their fires, that some Revenants had escaped and crawled back into their graves until such time as another powerful Dark Wizard called them forth? There were just enough incidents down through the years to keep the stories fueled. He and David had conjured them up often enough in childhood games that recreated Sparrow Longbow’s greatest battles.

 

Gareth sighed and sank back in his seat as he thought of David. He wondered if his friend had solved the mystery of the puzzle box yet. He wondered if his friend would understand the meaning of the gift within. Could David allow himself to understand it?

 

 _“If I asked you to stay…”_ Had David asked, Gareth would have obeyed and gladly. With every mile that carried him farther away from Llinnisfaire, the more a sense of unease grew within him. He hadn’t spoken lightly when he had warned David to be careful of the wizard Nicodemus and his bewitching daughter—the daughter who quite clearly had her sights set upon David.

 

Odette had every right to pursue him, of course. The blood of the ancient line of wizards ran through her veins and marked her as worthy of David. While he, born of an unknown mother and father and abandoned to the care of others, could never be more than a stable boy, however much he and David played at being equals.

 

He sighed and shifted around in a vain attempt to get comfortable. He glanced outside again to see if there was a signpost to announce how far they were from the next village. There was only darkness outside, though, thick trunked trees pressing in on either side, their branches tangled overhead. Something flickered out there and Gareth leaned closer to the window for a better look. Firelight, perhaps? But no, this light was moving—and there was more than one.

 

The coach lurched forward, with Gareth and the other passengers violently flung about as the driver urged his team to increase speed. So rudely awakened from their slumbers, there were exclamations of shock and fear, demands to know what was going on. Pressed against a window, Gareth stared out into the night and felt his stomach sink at what he saw. “Revenants…” Skeletal figures, swathed in ragged grave clothes, they bore down upon the coach on their fiery-eyed steeds, eerily silent and reeking of death.

 

The other passengers huddled together, frightened into silence. Gareth wished he had words of reassurance for them. If the coach could get clear of the forest, if there was a river nearby… Hadn’t he read once that Revenants could not cross running water? He couldn’t remember. He couldn’t think of _anything_ that might be useful as the Revenants relentlessly pursued them out onto a vast and windswept moor…

 

***

 

Llinnisfaire had been fairly abuzz with speculation ever since Nicodemus and his daughter, Odette, had moved there. As both were rumored to be exceptionally skilled in sorcery this was only to be expected.

Most everyone had a granddad who could talk of the dark old days when they were a lad and wizards and witches were to be hunted. Nor had the fear that spawned those terrible times ever completely gone away in all quarters.

 

David could admit his own curiosity about the pair had much to do with why he had accepted the invitation to dine with them. That the exotically beautiful Odette took an interest in him had been abundantly clear since that summer ball—Gareth had teased him about it relentlessly. _“Watch your step, my prince, you wouldn’t want her to turn you into a frog!”_ He had teased back, asking if Gareth would kiss him then, and felt a thrill of satisfaction at the way Gareth blushed and hastily turned his attention to other matters. Whatever else that signified, David was quite certain it did not bode well for the lady Odette’s designs upon him.

 

“You seem very far away, Your Highness.”  Odette’s husky voice drew him back and he gazed across the dining table at her, a flush of embarrassment hot in his face.

 

“I beg your pardon. I…have much on my mind, of late.” Cedric would chastise him to woolgathering again, and in this instance his exasperation would be justified. It was common sense, not fear-mongering, to keep up one’s guard to some degree when in the presence of magicians.

 

“You should have a help meet. Someone to share your burdens and make them lighter.”

 

“They’re not so very heavy.” And he Gareth’s promise to return to him was a pleasant warmth in his pocket. Curious, though, how the heart stone had only begun to feel warm when he had arrived at Wyvern House. “Will your father join us?” he asked to change the subject.

 

“He is occupied with his work at the moment but I believe he will be with us soon.”

 

David was tempted to inquire as to the nature of that work and yet wondered if he might prefer not to know any details. “Nothing that involves bat wings or eye of newt and that sort of thing, I trust?” he asked, his tone light.

 

Her reply was somewhat more serious than he would have liked. “No, nothing quite so crude.”

 

“Ah…” He cast about for some clever remark and was only somewhat relieved when Nicodemus finally appeared. The wizard did not look well and David rose to his feet to offer the older a man a steadying arm to guide him to the table.

 

“Thank you, Your Highness.” Nicodemus sat down rather heavily. His breath was labored and he looked disheveled. When Odette pressed a golden, jewel encrusted goblet into his hands, he drank eagerly and deeply. “Forgive me,” he addressed his word to David. “My work takes its toll, Your Majesty.”

 

“Please, call me David.” He studied the pair of them and made note of the contrasts. Where Odette’s hair was black as a raven’s wing, her father’s was quite fair, almost a match to his own. Like him, Nicodemus wore it long and tied back with a silk ribbon, though several strands clung wetly to his face at present. Nicodemus favored scarlet in his attire—a brocade waistcoat, and the lining of his long coat. Odette was a match to David in silver and black, but with an elaborate headdress that had the look of a fierce bird of prey wrought in gold filigree and set with exquisitely cut diamonds. They were a striking pair although possessed of a sharp awareness that he suspected would make them uncomfortable companions after some little time. Gareth’s warning that they had a hungry look to them rang through his mind and for a moment he entertained wild speculations as to their intentions towards him.

 

Just as swiftly he mastered his imagination and said, “If you would prefer to rest, sir, we could postpone this evening’s pleasures for another time.” He told himself he wasn’t trying to get away from them, yet he could not deny the disappointment he felt when they both assured him that would not be necessary.

 

“I shall recover,” Nicodemus said. “My weakness is in proportion to my task and will pass in time.” He glanced at his daughter and something in that look caused David to experience a prickle of fear. He idly noted that the heart stone in his pocket seemed to be on the verge of catching fire as Nicodemus instructed Odette to reveal what he had been working on. “I believe you will find this interesting, Your Majesty.”

 

David didn’t wave away the title this time. He was far too distracted at the sight of Odette as she crossed the room and drew back the curtains that covered a large, gilt framed mirror with a surface like obsidian. “I don’t understand,” he said slowly.

 

“You will,” Nicodemus assured him. “Daughter?”

 

She passed her hand in front of the mirror. It’s surface rippled, contracted and expanded as if it drew breath. A voice, harsh and sibilant, like nothing human should ever sound, spoke, “I am at thy command.”

 

“Show me the coach,” Odette said, not a hair so much as stirred by the eerie voice that issued from the mirror.

 

The oily surface flickered, grew cloudy, and then began to clear. A coach—very like the one he watched take Gareth away from Llinnisfaire, tore at a breakneck pace through dark woods and out into the open space of the moor. Behind the coach came Revenants on fire-eyed beasts like horses and it was this sight that had David on his feet and rushing to the mirror.

 

“They’re something to frighten children,” he whispered in protest, riveted to the scene. It appeared to be so real that he might have reached out to touch it. When he tried, all he felt was a cold, hard and slick surface beneath his fingers.

 

“I assure Your Highness,” Nicodemus was at this shoulder, “that they are far, far more than that. Behold!”

 

The coach driver had lost all control of his team now. They whinnied with fright and pulled at the coach, anxious to be free so they could bolt off into whatever safety the night could offer. The driver fell, screaming, from his box and was instantly set upon by two Revenants who stretched skeletal fingers towards his face. As the coach careened wildly out of control and began to fall, the driver shrieked in terror as the Revenant’s drew his life’s energy from him. Almost a shriveled husk, the driver was still alive enough, still had energy enough to unloose a bloodcurdling scream as the Revenant’s bent their death heads over him and, razor-sharp teeth bared, began to—

 

David tore his gaze away, only to look back in the same instant as the coach crashed on its side. As two wheels spun uselessly in the air, the horses broke free at last and galloped off across the moor. The Revenants ignored them. The dazed and bleeding passengers who dragged themselves from the wrecked coach were of far greater interest, and it looked to him that the undead creatures fed upon the fear they generated as much as anything else as they closed in upon the small group. His own terror was complete when he saw Gareth among them.

 

 _“No!”_ He pounded his fists against the glass with enough to shatter it. It didn’t even crack. The flickering images faded and left a smooth, unyielding surface. He rested his hands against it, fingers crooked as to tear it apart, as though he could dig through it to reach the awful vision it had shown him. He leaned his forehead against the cool, smooth glass as all the strength drained from him. “It’s a lie, a trick.”

 

“No.” Nicodemus sank into a chair, exhaustion clear in his movements. “It’s happened. It’s done.”

 

Odette fetched the goblet, refilled it and brought it to her father. “Will you be all right, my dear?”

 

Nicodemus drank down half the contents, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and sank back in his chair. “I will be. You can carry out the rest of it without me.”

 

David straightened and threw a wary look at them. “The rest of what?” he demanded. He welcomed the anger that began to kindle deep within him. It helped keep his grief at bay for now. “What is your reason for this?”

 

Nicodemus heaved a weary sighed and waved a trembling hand at Odette. “My daughter desires you—I desire your influence. Neither of us could achieve what he wanted until this impediment was removed.”

 

Impediment…? _“Impediment?”_ He knocked the goblet from Nicodemus’ hand so hard it flew across the room in a shower of rich, red liquid, like blood, to crash against a wall and clatter to the floor. David hauled Nicodemus out of his chair and shook him as a terrier shakes a rat. _“His name was Gareth!”_ He dropped the sorcerer back into the chair, afraid of how close he was to snapping the older man’s neck.

 

He marched to the huge double doors, carved with a dragon motif, and shouted, “Guards! Guards, attend me!”

 

“They will not come,” Odette said, unperturbed by any of this.

 

He glared at her, dragged the doors open—and halted, a cold and deep fear slowly uncurling now as he found his retinue all sprawled out upon the floor in pools of blood. He looked at their faces, the way their eyes stared at him in silent, horrified accusation, and felt sick.

 

“My father needed sustenance,” Odette said. “Your men provided it.” She spoke these words as if they were ordinary, as if she imparted knowledge anyone would possess. As if this was all perfectly, completely sane.

 

“We had hoped for your cooperation,” she continued, advancing on him as David backed away. “Oh, not at first; we knew you would require persuasion so that we could turn you to us and force you to submit to our will.” Impossibly, she had him trapped in a corner, held there as though pinned by her gaze. “It would have been quite painless. You would not even dream of breaking free.” Her expression hardened and he thought it was like a mask ripped away to reveal her true face at last. The hunger in her eyes was predatory, her pale cheeks were flushed with color, and her tongue flicked out to lick her crimson lips as though her mouth watered for a taste of him. “This will be so much less fun,” she smiled to show him her long, sharp fangs, “for you.”

 

He expected her to lunge at him and sink those fangs into his throat. Instead, she produced a knife and drew its blade along her forearm. Blood welled up from the cut and dripped onto the floor as she raised her arm to his face. “Drink,” she commanded, voice rough with power, with need. “Drink and be bound unto my will.”

 

He turned his head away, lips clamped shut as rich, ruby droplets spattered his face. “I will not,” he said, voice so low he barely heard it heard it himself. “I will not,” he insisted once more, a little stronger this time. Heat engulfed him and sparked out towards her as he declared a third time, “I will _not_!”

 

Odette hissed and shrieked like a cat doused with water and stumbled back from him. Shocked and suspicious, she stared at him, disbelief swiftly turned to anger. “Where is it? The talisman—where is it?” She reached toward him but snatched her hand back as if something burned it. _“Where is it?”_

 

David moved away from her, made his way down the front hall to the doors. He had no idea what talisman she talked of; there was nothing in his possession that was at all unusual… The heart stone? A sudden realization struck him and he touched his pocket and found the fabric warm to the touch. He slipped his hand inside and winced as his fingers brushed the heart stone. It cooled at his touch and he curled his fingers around it as he took it out.

 

Odette stared at it, her lip curled in a snarl. “Throw it away.”

 

He watched it as the amethyst glowed from within, warm in the palm of his hand, its heat flaring as Odette came near again and halted. “No,” he said. “I don’t think I will.” He held it before him and commanded her to open the door for him. “Do it now.” Fury in her eyes, she flung the door wide on a night damp with rain, with a wisps of fog that rolled across the ground. “Stand back.”

 

“Odette,” Nicodemus stumbled into the hallway, still with the look of death warmed over him about him. How much power did it take to raise the Revenants and set them on a task? What terrible consequences followed such an act? “Let him go, daughter.” Weak as he was, there was still compelling authority in his voice. It should have been enough to sway her. For a moment she did waver but her rage was too strong; she appeared almost beside herself with it.

 

“We would have given him everything, Father. Power undreamed of to rule with us—and he _spurns_ that? _Spurns me for a stable boy?”_

 

“Daughter--” Nicodemus reached for her, to stop her, but she ignored him and lashed out. She struck David’s arm, grabbed hold of it and dug her nails into his flesh as she tried to pry his fingers loose from the heart stone. Cold fire burst from the stone; cold as it engulfed David’s hand, but hot as a crucible as it shot towards Odette. The sleeve of her gown began to smolder, her flesh to singe, and still she clawed at him until Nicodemus reached them and wrenched them apart. Odette staggered and fell as the heart stone slipped from David’s grasp and clattered along the floor. Before David could dive after it, Nicodemus seized him by the shoulders and thrust him out into the cold, wet night. “Go!” he urged. “Flee, now, while there’s time. I will contain her.”

 

David didn’t know what that meant. He didn’t care. He took to his heels and ran. Horrendous shrieks of agony rent the air behind them but he did not stop to look back. He ran, tripping and stumbling, through grounds that were so much more wild and dangerous in the dark. The fog swirled around him, engulfed him so that he could barely make out his own hand before him. He took a step and hastily drew his foot back as he felt the earth fall away beneath it. Another direction and the path seemed firmer—until he stumbled into a wall. He put his hands against it, fingers tracing the bricks. It wasn’t high; he could touch its top, he could haul himself up and over it… To drop down to what on the other side?

 

That hesitation doomed him. The fog cleared, misty tendrils that drifted away like dandelion fuzz to reveal Odette. All of her previous elegance had vanished. She looked tattered and bruised and…older than she had, by decades.

 

“Stupid mortal—I would have offered you the world.”

 

“I don’t want the world.”

 

“No.” Her lips curled in a cruel and mocking smile. “No, you want the stable boy.” She came closer and he willed himself not to flinch as she touched his cheek, her nails scraping his skin. “Did he give you the talisman as a heart pledge? Did he even know its power?” Her right hand, where the stone had burnt her, was blackened and withered; the stench of charred flesh and smoke clung to her like some obscene perfume. “How sweet.” She raked her nails down his face and drew blood. When she hungrily licked her lips this time there was no erotically charged seduction in the gesture. “I could kill you.” She spoke off hand, the same way she might consider which frock she would purchase. “But where’s the fun in that?” The impish look in her eyes might have possessed a playful, mischievous quality at another time. In this time and place, it only turned David’s stomach.

 

She stood back, her good hand extended toward him as she wove her dark enchantment. At first the arcane, eldritch words she spoke were unfamiliar to him and might have been in some long lost tongue. As she reached the end, however, the words rang strong and clear:

_“Cold heart, stone heart,_  
 _Never know ye bliss,_  
 _Till warm heart, true heart,_  
 _Gives you true love’s kiss.”_

 Could that be all? He might have laughed—but he couldn’t, not as ice crept through his veins and froze him. He wanted to scream, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t speak, he couldn’t blink, he couldn’t move. She touched him, but he felt nothing. She spoke cruel words to him and laughed when he didn’t hear them. Nor did he react when she fell to the ground and writhed in agony, as smoke billowed up around her and bolts of lightning cracked across the sky. When she dragged her bent and gnarled body away, he took no note of it. When the skies broken open and poured down icy rain, he felt neither wet or cold, for statues are carved of stone, and how could marble ever smile or weep or love?

 

***

The stretch of moor was quiet but for the awful sound of the Revenants as they fed. Of a sudden, they all turned as one to watch a large, white wolf paced out from the dark woods, with a storytelling of ravens following behind.

 

The wolf howled once, a low and ancient, eerie sound to chill the marrow of a living man—or undead ones scampering for cover in ungainly hops and leaps. The wolf gave no further warning as it charged at them and the ravens swooped and dived at them. The battle was a brief one, wolf and ravens the undisputed victors.

 

As the ravens stalked among the corpses, the wolf nosed at the coach driver and passengers, and put his head back to howl once more, this time in honor of the dead. A raven paused by one passenger and cocked its head, bright black eyes alive with excitement as it called to the wolf.

 

The wolf approached and put his head down to sniff, to nudge the man over on his back. He sniffed again and tilted his head as he puzzled things out, one enormous paw placed on the man’s chest to push at him.

 

A moment, and the man gasped for air, his eyelids flickered open, and it was testimony to what had gone before that, to find himself in the regard of a wolf and bright eyed raven elicited no response beyond a sigh.

 

_PART TWO_

 

“Well, thank ye, now, don’t mind if I do,” Old Gwillym said as the stranger sent a fresh pint before him. “Oh, aye, Llinnisfaire was a happy, lovely place back in the old days, before the witch and her father did away with Prince David.” He drank off half his pint and breathed a sigh of satisfaction. “Oh now, he was a charmer, was Prince David. Handsomer than was good for him but humble for all that, an’ always a kind word and helpful hand for those not so grand as himself.”

 

“What do you mean, the witch and her father did away with him? That would be the ones called Odette and Nicodemus?”

 

“The very ones, the very ones. And well, it were something like that. _They_ claimed they didn’t know what might’ve happened to Prince David the night he was ‘sposed to dine with ‘em. Claimed he never even arrived, nor any servant with a message. Mind, there was talk his own bodyguard murdered and robbed him but there, no one’s seen hide nor hair of any of ‘em, either, not in all these years.”

 

If Old Gwillym or any other regulars who had stopped at the inn this cold winter’s night to warm themselves took note of how the stranger turned pale and started at this news, none remarked upon it. “Was, ah,” the stranger drank from his own pint to wet his throat, “was a body ever found?”

 

“No, sir, not a solitary trace.” Old Gwillym smacked the scarred and battered old table for emphasis. “And well,” he visibly subsided then, work roughened hands curled protectively around his pint, “that’s about the time all these Revenants and other things ain’t ‘sposed to walk by day started comin’ out, ‘cause a this fog never liftin’ and the sun something you only glimpse on a rare day.”

 

The stranger nodded slowly. He knew about gloom and the things of darkness that had crept out freely under its cover. He had done battle enough with them with on his journey here. “Didn’t I hear there was an uncle or some sort like that?”

 

“Oh, yes, name was Cedric.” Old Gwillym looked around at his cronies for confirmation; they all nodded sagely back.

“He’s passed on?”

 

“Who? Cedric? Nay, who’s said that?” Old Gwillyn peered at the stranger with some suspicion now. “He’s still alive, him and Ethan and Rose, up at the Castle, or what’s left of it now. They come to the village now and again. You can tell they’re all broken and heartsick, though, losing the prince, and then Ethan and Rose’s boy—oh, now what did they call him?” Once again Old Gwillym appealed to the crowd and heard several suggestions tossed back at him. He latched onto the most popular. “Gareth, yeah, that was it, Gareth. He up and disappeared again, too. Went off to University and wasn’t never heard from again. Oh, terrible times it’s been around here, sir, all these seven years.”

 

“Nay, ‘tis been ten years,” asserted one of the cronies, with a hopeful look at the stranger and a meaningful one down at his empty pint. “Name’s Hugh.”

 

The stranger signaled for a fresh pint for Hugh. “And you say it’s ten years since this all happened?”

 

“He does an’ he’s a fool,” Old Gwillym asserted with a hint of belligerence. “It was seven, _seven_ years past. Because, Hugh, don’t you remember, that was the night of the Storm.” The way he said it, it warranted the distinction of a capital letter. “Oh,” Old Gwillym and Hugh bother shuddered at the memory, “never was there such a storm, sir. Lightnin’ an’ rain, an’ a wind howlin’ through the land tearin’ up roofs and bringin’ down trees.”

 

“Brought the gloom, it did, that storm,” offered Hugh as he claimed his new pint. “Blowed it in from somewhere’s else and ain’t never come back to lift it.”

 

Old Gwillym nodded his endorsement of this statement. “Took some lives, that storm did. Got old Nicodemus in the end.”

 

The stranger leaned forward at that, a keenness in his look. “How do you mean?”

 

“Well,” Old Gwillym scratched his gray head as if to stimulate his mind to action, “I don’t rightly recall all the details but seems like he was injured durin’ the storm.” He checked with Hugh for confirmation.

 

“Aye, somethin’ like that. His daughter took sick with something, too.”

 

“But you said they spoke with the constable when there were questions about the prince.”

 

Old Gwillym and Hugh peered at each other over their pints and tried to pin down this fine point. “Aye, the constable went up there to Wyvern House and talked to old Nicodemus. Never seen the daughter, ain’t nobody has all these years,” said Hugh.

 

“Mysteries happened that night, sir, mark my words,” said Old Gwillym, an insight that sent a shiver through the stranger.

 

***

 

No lights warmed the windows of the Castle in these dawn hours, though the groundskeeper’s cottage looked welcoming enough. As he watched, the back door opened and Rose stood there, holding the door to let the cat out. She lingered there a moment, a look of deep sadness on her face. He couldn’t help it, he whispered, “Mother,” and thought it might have carried to her, she looked so intently in his direction. Another instant, though, and she sighed and turned back into the house, the door shut firmly behind her.

 

Gareth stepped out of the shadows then. There was no reason not to go up to the cottage and knock on the door. His appearance after all this time would be a shock, of course, but he thought it would be welcome one. There would be questions, though, demands for explanations, and that would take time he did not want to spare just now.

 

He walked back to where his horse was tethered, climbed into the saddle and turned her towards Wyvern House. He anticipated everything and nothing and knew there was every chance he would find no answers.

 

The way was more wild than he remembered. Full of fallen branches and trees, and likely choked with weeds in summer. Now, snow lay over everything and slowed them even more. Before long, though, the house came into view, a derelict ruin in the dawn light. He dismounted and approached cautiously, stopped for a moment with his head tilted as he heard a voice nearby singing in high-pitched, slightly off key voice. He couldn’t quite make out the words but he followed them along a path until he came in sight of a gnarled old crone busy tending to a grave.

 

He tethered the horse and approached the old woman, close enough now he could make out a name carved on the headstone. He let out a pent up breath of relief as he read NICODEMUS, and called out to the crone, “Is that the old wizard, then?”

 

She gave a start and turned on him, wizened old face screwed up as if to see him better. “Have an apple, dearie?” she asked as she came towards him. She held out a claw-like hand, the apple clutched in it as ancient and withered as her. “Best apples you’ll find around here, love.”

 

Given the look of the place, Gareth could well believe it. “Do you have a name?”

 

She assumed an incongruously haughty look and drew herself up as much as her bent frame would allow. “They called me Odette, back in the days you remember. Oh, aye,” she said with a look of triumph about her now, “I know you, the fairy prince come back for his true love.” She cackled at that, had to cough for a bit, and then pointed. “Well, there he is, then, go and have at it.”

 

He looked, he couldn’t help it. Of course there was nothing to see but a tangle of dead vines that shrouded a weathered old statue. “Odette, the enchantress?” She was mad, of course, she must be, and yet…Old Gwillym and Hugh had said Odette had taken ill and had not been seen since that terrible night. He looked at her more closely and tried to discern something of the exotic beauty who had dazzled them all that long gone summer. There was something in her eyes…

 

“What’s left of Odette is here,” she said, like it was a riddle. She narrowed those eyes at him. “What are you staring at then? I know it’s not my charms.” This sent her off into another fit of cackles that took the air from her lungs. She gave a look of alarm as he stepped close and shot out an arm, his hand plucking at the bit of twine tied around her neck.

 

“Where did you get this?” he asked as he tore it free and held it up, the twine wrapped many times around a heart-shaped bit of amethyst. “How do you come by it?”

 

“It’s mine!” She tried to grab at it but he held it well out of her reach. “Give it back! It’s mine! I paid everything I had for it!”

 

“You took it off him! David, you stole it off him, didn’t you?”

 

“Never stole it! Bought it fair and square, everything I owned,” she howled and wept and lunged at him, trying to wrench it from his grasp. “Give it back, give it to me!”

 

Gareth pushed her off, stumbled, and caught hold of that statue to keep himself upright as the heart stone tumbled at its feet.

 

“It weeps, that statue,” the crone told him. “Whispers, too, sometimes, if you know to listen.” She cocked her head as if to listen. “Waiting all this time… Should’ve taken a sledgehammer to him years ago. Never thought of that before,” she murmured to herself, a look of mad speculation in her eyes. She picked herself up out of the snow and began to trudge off in the direction of Wyvern House. “Better be quick about it, then, or I’ll be back to finish him off for good.”

 

He stared after her, unable to make any sense of a word the mad crone had said. He brushed snow off himself and reached for the heart stone, surprised when it glowed with warmth in the palm of his hand. He started back to his horse, and the stone grew cold. Mind racing, he turned back to the statue, walked closer to it, and felt the stone grow warmer and warmer with every step.

 

He looked at the statue and began to tear the vines away from it until he could make out details, trace its features. “David…?” There was wetness beneath his fingers, but only from the snow and mist. “Oh, my love.” He’d come too late. There was no possibility that he could ever do anything else.

 

Fingers trembling, he traced beloved features, touched that old scar—all the things he had always longed to do and known could never be permitted. It should have felt foolish to embrace a statue. Instead it almost broke his heart and he buried his face against the cold, unyielding shoulder. “Forgive me, forgive me,” he whispered and kissed the marble lips. He tasted ice and stone and closed his eyes to imagine it was real, that David was warm and alive in his arms and kissing him back—

 

And he stumbled back as the heart stone flared with light and heat and engulfed him and the statue. He could feel that light, the warmth, pour through him; he felt the statue stir, felt it transform into flesh and blood and then David was looking at him, astonishment in his eyes.

 

“Gareth…” David touched his face. “Did you just kiss me?”

 

“Yes, my prince.”

 

David nodded. “Would you do it again?”

 

Gareth smiled. “Yes, my prince,” he said, and joyously suited action to word.

 

There were many stories to tell, explanations to be made, but that could all wait upon this kiss, and the next one, and another after that, as the cold fog lifted and the sun shone down brilliantly over Llinnisfaire once more.

 

***

And they lived happily ever after.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> First, thanks to Gryvon for the prompt. It was inspiring and challenging and my only regret is that there wasn't time enough to fully execute it.
> 
> My first inspiration was "The Frog Prince." If I knew, I had forgotten that in fact the princess in there is awful to the frog and only goes along with his requests because her father forces her to; that in fact it's his servant, Faithful Henry, who is devoted to the prince and agonizing over his enchantment. Needless to say that sent a little bell going *ding ding ding* for me and this was born. There's some Snow White in here as well, a tip of the hat to Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" at the end, another little one to "Once Upon a Time." Odette turning David to stone comes from Medusa--a little bit of a stray from the Brothers Grimm. There was going to be a nod to Tam Linn as well, with Gareth's sojourn in the fairy world, but time just didn't allow for it. :sob: That's what the White Wolf and Ravens were meant to foreshadow anyway.


End file.
